Advice on using GURPs to replace 4E?

[mach1.9pants]

Well thanks for all the replies guys, good info.

My players want to stick to 4E until this campaign (the WotC modules series) reaches a conclusion, and then I want to try WotBS (I did a bit of the 3E and want to do the whole thing). So it means sticking to 4E for a long while.

However I have perused the quick rules and (because I am running modules) I am going to buy the GURPS PDFs and start a campaign from scratch. I probably have a couple of years to do it, we only play once a week (and then only if life doesn't intervene!). The 'generic-ness' will go with a custom campaign I guess, and the flexibility means it'll be exactly how I want it.

Thanks again and happy gaming.

 

[Crakkerjakk]

My experience stems from GURPS 3rd ed., but should be applicable nevertheless.

What GURPS fails to emulate is the power growth typical to D&D. GURPS-characters start out more capable the D&D-1st-level types, but won't reach the high end of the power scale so smoothly.

If you hand out Character Points as often as XP in D&D, the characters will quickly be extremely powerful. If, on the other hand, you are more stingy, the players will have to wait quite a long time until their characters grow in a noticable way.

I don't think this is the case. Fairly obviously, if handing out too much CP results in characters more powerful than is typical in D&D, and handing out too little results in characters that are weaker than is typical in D&D, there must be a happy medium somewhere in between that maps fairly closely to D&D character progression.

Heck, you could actually save up the CP the characters earn and give it to them in one big chunk once it reaches a certain amount to replicate the "leveling up" effect.

I think it's actually possible to replicate the benefits each class gains on leveling up in GURPS. I don't think it's fun or a good idea, but it could be done. In any GURPS game, the GM has the responsibility of telling the players what they can and can't spend points on. This can be as simple as telling players in a gritty WWII game that they can't buy Flight, or as nuanced as mandating that at least half of earned CPs must be spent on increasing skills used in actual play.

This is how you replicate the growth of D&D characters. "You're a fighter? You have to spend 75% of your points on increasing weapons skills or buying up physical stats. Mage? 50% on magical abilites and spells, no more than 25% on weapon skills or physical stats."

I wouldn't want that level of constraint on my character or my players, but if you want to model the growth patterns you see in D&D, it can be done.

 

[kilpatds]

I don't think this is the case. Fairly obviously, if handing out too much CP results in characters more powerful than is typical in D&D, and handing out too little results in characters that are weaker than is typical in D&D, there must be a happy medium somewhere in between that maps fairly closely to D&D character progression.

Maybe, but it's not linear. My GURPS is very rusty, but from memory I'd say a 1st level 3e wizard was around 50 points or so, a 5th level 3e wizard is probably more like 200, and a 20th level wizard is probably around 2000+

 

[Jan van Leyden]

I don't think this is the case. Fairly obviously, if handing out too much CP results in characters more powerful than is typical in D&D, and handing out too little results in characters that are weaker than is typical in D&D, there must be a happy medium somewhere in between that maps fairly closely to D&D character progression.

Yep, that's possible. But do you honestly think that a GM new to GURPS could get this right? GURPS' flexibility gives you all possibilities, but no guidelines on how to reach a certain goal, especially concerning character growth.

A wild guess: if you switch over from D&D to GURPS, your first campaign's characters will be remarkably different from everything known from D&D. In the following campaigns you'll apply modifications, gradually nearing your personal sweet spot.

Mind you, that's not bad, but one shouldn't expect to switch systems while maintaining the feel of the old one.

 

[Crakkerjakk]

Yep, that's possible. But do you honestly think that a GM new to GURPS could get this right? GURPS' flexibility gives you all possibilities, but no guidelines on how to reach a certain goal, especially concerning character growth.

A wild guess: if you switch over from D&D to GURPS, your first campaign's characters will be remarkably different from everything known from D&D. In the following campaigns you'll apply modifications, gradually nearing your personal sweet spot.

Mind you, that's not bad, but one shouldn't expect to switch systems while maintaining the feel of the old one.

That's fair. There are actually guidelines on advancement (an entire chapter in Characters, and a very specific half-page in the Campaigns in the game-mastering section on guiding character advancement) but to be perfectly honest, no one ever reads those parts, they just grab the rules and commence to making their psychic blueberry muffins and ninja unicorns. When most people first try GURPS, they tend to try to use everything at once (I know I did) and it blows up in their face. Then, as you've mentioned, they start trimming off the pieces they don't like and end up after a few iterations with something approaching their preferred style of play. Once you've gotten familiar with the ruleset, you do all that before you start the game (as the parts of Campaigns that no one reads suggest you do), and things tend to move much more smoothly, and with less flying laser-armed hippopotamai.

That's actually one of the functions of suplements like Dungeon Fantasy, to give genre-specific advice on how to emulate the feel of the genre using GURPS (including details like character advancement, which gets around a page and a half in Dungeon Fantasy.)

I would agree that GURPS is less easy to pick up and start playing, if only becuase it lacks the focus a game committed to one genre can afford. It has less constraints on what it allows you to do, and inevitably, people tend to burn themselves on that occassionally. But that doesn't mean that it can't fill the same niche that D&D does for many gamers, just that like any game on the market, there's a bit of a learning curve at first.

 

[pawsplay]

Maybe, but it's not linear. My GURPS is very rusty, but from memory I'd say a 1st level 3e wizard was around 50 points or so, a 5th level 3e wizard is probably more like 200, and a 20th level wizard is probably around 2000+

I think I would say 3e/1st level is about 100 points, 5th level is about 200 to 250, and 20th level is probably around 1000 points. Right off the bat, IQ 12 and Magery 2 runs 65 points.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Yep, that's possible. But do you honestly think that a GM new to GURPS could get this right? GURPS' flexibility gives you all possibilities, but no guidelines on how to reach a certain goal, especially concerning character growth.

A wild guess: if you switch over from D&D to GURPS, your first campaign's characters will be remarkably different from everything known from D&D. In the following campaigns you'll apply modifications, gradually nearing your personal sweet spot.

Mind you, that's not bad, but one shouldn't expect to switch systems while maintaining the feel of the old one.

QFT! I'm more of a HEROphile, myself, but the problem is the same for that system (or M&M, for that matter*)- lots of flexibility, but few guidelines.

I have no doubt that I could run a 1Ed/2Ed/3.XD&D style game in HERO, but I've been playing around with the Champions/HERO system since it hit the market- nearly as long as I've been playing D&D.

* The release of Warriors & Warlocks will probably change that a bit...